


Transition: 2032

by SteveWilson



Category: seaQuest
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28670628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteveWilson/pseuds/SteveWilson
Summary: It's 2032 and seaQuest has suddenly re-appeared after being lost for a decade. Dr. Kristin Westphalen goes searching for the man she never got over. This is one of four "Transition" stories dealing with changes in classic SF shows, which I wrote for the fanzine "Encounters" in 1996.
Relationships: Nathan Bridger/Kristin Westphalen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Transition: 2032

Transition: 2032

By Steven H. Wilson

“No, stupid, like this!” the boy exclaimed. His tone was fond, though. He took the beach ball off the nose of the dolphin and tossed it straight up, positioning himself so that, when it came down again, it hit his forehead and sailed across the pool.

The dolphin clicked happily and went in pursuit. The teenager, shaking his head, watched after her. As she once again took charge of the ball, he gestured and called to her—in a human approximation of her own dolphin clicks—to imitate his stunt. She didn't.

He sighed. He was a handsome kid, almost nineteen. He still preferred the company of dolphins to humans, despite their continual inability to understand the human customs he tried to teach them.

“At this rate it'll be a year before I get them to hit it over a net.”

“And,” added Kristin Westphalen with a smile, “it'll be another damned century before the Olympics Committee approves human/dolphin water volleyball as an event!”

“Pessimist!” the boy sneered.

“Realist,” she corrected him. She scooted her lounge chair backwards, getting more of it under the pool-side umbrella. It was nearing noon and getting hot. Caesar didn't mind the heat, but he was in the water—practically his native element. He'd complained bitterly about having to wear even the briefest of swimsuits, but his father had insisted. While Kristin was visiting, nudity would be curbed.

Malcolm Landsdowne really was an old prude, she thought; his dropout lifestyle at Caicos Cay notwithstanding. When it came to women, he put them on just as high a pedestal as any Victorian of two centuries earlier. There was a certain charm to his formality, though. More, it was a great comfort to her to have some link to Nathan.

Nathan... he'd been declared dead three years ago, as had they all: Miguel, Tim, Jonathan and Lucas. She missed them all, but, of course, missed Nathan and Lucas most. Even though she and Nathan had called a halt to their romantic entanglement, and he and Lucas had set off on a new tour of duty, at least they been only an ocean or so away.

Now she didn't even know what had happened to them.

She came here so often for the link to the past. Malcolm was Nathan's oldest friend. Caesar, who shared with Lucas his love of dolphins, at least made her feel there was still youth and energy in the world. The boy had come far since his father had been imprisoned and Malcolm had adopted him. He'd opened up, begun to speak again—he hadn’t, for so long. It was good to see.

Something cold pressed itself against her shoulder, and Kristin jumped with a small cry. Behind her, Malcolm grinned and held out the glass of lemonade that had been the source of the cold.

“Refill?” he asked pleasantly. His hairline was receding, and the unkempt spill about his collar was gray, but he was still the same beach bum he'd always been.

She shook her head. “Dammit, I thought some huge reptile from the wilds of the island had slithered up behind me.” 

“Only me,” he said innocently.

“Then my first guess wasn't far off.” She snatched the lemonade and took a long drink. “Thank you. Do that again and I'll feed you to those dolphins.”

“They wouldn't eat red meat.”

“I'll batter-fry you and serve the bits in newspaper—they’ll think it's fish sticks.”

“You have a wicked imagination for a Doctor.”

“Comes of fraternizing with criminal elements.”

He chuckled. “I've missed your sharp comebacks, Kristin.” He jerked his head at the pool. “Nature boy over here isn't much for conversation, even when he does surface.”

“I'll bet he's got a lot to say. Who could get a word in edgewise with you?”

He shook a finger at her. “You see, I'd never notice that. We need a woman's viewpoint around here.”

She shook her head. “Don't go down that path again. We've been there too many times.”

More than once, Malcolm had asked Kristin to join him at his island retreat. She'd refused every time. They had much in common—too much, she thought. Alone here, they'd kill each other. Besides, Kristin knew, as Malcolm did, that any relationship she entered into with him would just be an attempt to hold onto the past, and Nathan.

Her final conversation with Nathan Bridger was still clearly etched in her mind. They'd spent four weeks together at his island home, doing very little except relaxing after their year's tour of duty on _seaQuest_. It had been an exciting time, a time for exploring their feelings for each other, for recovering from stresses and traumas both recent and long past. It had been a necessary time.

But they'd both known, at the end of it, that they'd have to return to their chosen places in the world outside the bounds of Bridger’s Island. He planned to oversee the construction and launch of _seaQuest_ II, she to go into research with Susan, her daughter.

She had, in fact, been the one who said to him while they walked on the pier outside his house, “Nathan, I think we need to be honest with each other. We're not traveling the same path, are we?”

“Aren't we?” he'd asked with that bemused look he so often got.

She'd linked her arm in his and patted his hand. “Don't play games with me. I'm too old for that nonsense.”

“I'm only going on a tour of duty. It's not like I won't get shore leave—”

“—which you'll spend fine-tuning your boat's systems and nursemaiding your officers through personal crises. Be honest.”

He'd rolled his eyes. “I may be a little hard to get hold of.”

“And I'll be buried in research with Susan.”

His eyes had dropped. For a minute, he hadn't looked at her.

“We have to be mature, Nathan. I can't ask you to commit to me when you're already committed to _seaQuest_. I'm not sure I want to have any ties now either, except for Susan.”

“Are you sure?”

She'd nodded, unable to speak past the lump growing in her throat.

“If it's what you want, Kristin—”

He'd said it so gently, so meaningfully, with so much hurt and concern in his voice, that she couldn't stop herself from crying.

“Just shut up and hold me, Nathan,” she'd said against his chest. Then she'd sobbed for what seemed like hours.

It wasn't something she'd wanted to do, pushing him away; but so many things had made it seem necessary. There was the way he looked at Carol's pictures, every time he walked through the living room. There was the tone he'd get in his voice when he showed Kristin some little knick-knack Carol had bought, curtains she'd sewn, books she'd loved.

There was the awkwardness which had pre-empted their attempt to make love in his bedroom—Carol's bedroom. Her ghost was there with him, watching him, and he couldn't be with another woman in that place.

Bottom line: for Nathan, Carol Bridger was still very much alive. Kristin wasn't willing to be “the other woman” to someone who'd been dead two years.

In the end, they'd both agreed Kristin was right. Avoiding ties that would get in the way of their work was the right thing to do. When _seaQuest_ 's tour of duty was up, he'd call her. Maybe then...

But _seaQuest_ 's tour had never officially ended. She'd just disappeared one day, with her crew. For a decade, she'd become one of the modern mysteries of the deep. Just the week before, one of the networks had done a special on famous disappearances. Whetting the public’s appetite to hear about the loss of the Marie Celeste and Amelia Earhart had been the story of the _seaQuest_.

Kristin hadn't watched.

She and Nathan had spoken only rarely during that year before he’d vanished. It had been a busy time for both of them. Lucas, with more time to spend firing off messages into the ether, had written her often. He’d told her of the growing closeness between Nathan and his new CMO, Wendy Smith. Kristin had met Wendy, a pretty young girl, daughter of one of Nathan's old friends.

Well, he'd moved on, she told herself. It was time for her to do the same. And she had moved on to relationships with other men—six of them, in the last ten years. The longest had lasted six months. When she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that the only constant male companion in her life was Malcolm.

Malcolm, who had been talking to her for some minutes now, and she hadn’t heard a word he'd said. She turned to him and smiled.

“Sorry. I drifted off.”

Caesar snorted a chuckle. “Dad has that effect on people.”

“Quiet you,” snapped Malcolm. He looked back at Kristin. “I asked what you're planning to do now that Susan has shipped off to Asia.”

“Well—”

He raised a finger. “Hold that thought. Your detour into the dark recesses of your soul has delayed this conversation. It's five o’clock, and I want to see if the Oscars have snubbed McCauley Culkin yet again.”

He fumbled through a stack of data cartridges on his table and came up with a battered remote. He pressed a button, and the holographic display flashed into being over the pool.

But the anticipated report on the gifted director’s award status was not what they saw in the shimmering field that appeared. Rather, they saw the image of a young man: blond, unkempt, dressed in a shabby coverall, and still very much an eighteen-year-old.

“Lucas!” Kristin blurted out.

“Impossible,” said Malcolm. “He’s dead—at least he’s missing. And he’d be almost thirty by now.”

“Shut up!” Kristin snapped. “Turn up the damned sound!”

The commentator confirmed what Kristin already knew. Lucas Wolenczak, missing this past decade, had suddenly appeared at a UEO conference and attempted to attack Secretary General McGath. Inside sources had offered no explanation for Wolenczak’s sudden re-appearance and refused to speculate on his apparent youth. As to _seaQuest_ and her crew, Captain Oliver Hudson of the UEO was investigating...

“Wow,” Malcolm muttered.

Caesar had climbed from the pool and was examining the image of Lucas. “I remember him,” he said thoughtfully. “He taught the dolphins to talk.”

Kristin nodded, never taking her eyes from the image, even long after it faded and was replaced by a commercial hyping Microsoft's '33 model luxury sedans. “Yes, Lucas taught the dolphins to talk,” she said automatically. Then she came back to life. “What the hell is he doing, attacking McGath? Where's he been? What—?”

Malcolm’s hands came quickly to her shoulders, soothing her. He shushed her rapid-fire questions, and she realized she was bordering on hysteria. It was just so damned shocking! Lucas was alive, and that could mean the others were as well.

“I know what you're thinking,” Malcolm said. “If Lucas is alive—”

She nodded. “Nathan may be too. But if he is—if they are—where have they been hiding?”

“Do you think they have been? Hiding?”

She sniffed. “Well, I wouldn't put it past Nathan, would you?”

“He's done it before.”

“So he has,” she agreed thoughtfully. “But it looks like Lucas has done more than slip off to a deserted island. He hasn't aged. It would take some sort of cryogenic process, or—” She broke off, grabbing Malcolm's hand. “It doesn't matter. If Nathan's alive—if there's any possibility—we have to go look for him.”

“Where?”

“Where else? Where he always goes when he wants to drop out of sight—that damned island of his.”

“But it was destroyed in the first Macronesian advance.” protested Malcolm.

“Not destroyed, just leveled. Would that stop Nathan Bridger?”

“I guess you wanna go right now.”

She nodded emphatically. “Yes. Come with me?”

“Of course. You gonna tell him?”

“Tell him?”

“That after ten years you haven't gotten over him?”

She started to protest, to say that she was just concerned for the safety of a dear friend. Then she wondered why she should lie to Malcolm. He knew her better than anyone. “Am I that transparent?”

“No, I was just guessing. All I really know is he never got over you. He just wanted to give you space to continue your research.”

Could that be true, she wondered? “I don't believe you. _seaQuest_ was his first love.”

“First love doesn't often last. Tell him.”

“First we have to find him. Let's get the hell out of here!”

For Kristin, knowing that the island had been devastated by a hail of incendiary bombs and seeing that actual damage were two different things. Tears came to her eyes as she and Malcolm stepped out of the launch they’d piloted up to where the dock had once been. It was gone now. From this vantage, the house was visible—what was left of it, anyway. What had once been a cheerful bungalow was now a charred ruin, fit together out of jagged sections of wall that only suggested the shape of a house. Her first impression was that Nathan—if he were alive and had come here—would have found nothing worth returning to. No one could live here anymore, and trying to restore the place would be just too demoralizing for someone who had loved it as much as Nathan had.

They were surprised when a cry came from the ruin. It was not a cry of alarm or anguish, but one of glee, a child’s cry.

“What the—?” Malcolm demanded.

From out of the rubble dashed a small boy with blond, almost-white hair. He careened forward, oblivious of his observers, moving in that way small boys do which suggests they don’t care if they fall and skin knees or bump heads. Immediately behind him, also running, was a woman. She was about forty, dark both in hair and complexion, and dressed in grubby clothes. She looked as though she’d been spending considerable time cleaning up inside.

Kristin’s first thought was that they were squatters, refugees who’d found the island after being displaced in a Macronesian raid. But the boy looked nothing like the woman who appeared to be caring for him.

“Michael!” the woman snapped.

The boy stopped short, though not as a result of her reprimanding tone, it seemed. He had spotted Kristin and Malcolm. He stared at them, eyes wide, appraising. The woman now noticed them as well. Her face was alive with unhidden fear. Apparently, she knew all too well how dangerous the islands were in this time of political upheaval.

Kristin tried to sound reassuring. “It’s all right. We’re not here to hurt you. We’re friends of... the man who used to live here.”

The woman seemed to consider that. She looked skeptically at Kristin and asked, “What was his name?”

The woman’s use of the past tense alarmed her. Was she going to say that Nathan was dead, after all? Kristin reprimanded herself for being silly. She’d accepted that Nathan was dead years ago... hadn’t she?

“His name is Nathan Bridger,” said Malcolm. “This island belongs to his heirs.”

The woman smiled now. She pointed to the boy and said, “Captain Bridger’s heir is here.”

“What?” Kristin demanded.

“This is Michael Bridger,” the woman explained. “The Captain’s grandson. I am Maria, his governess.”

“Nathan had no grandchildren,” said Malcolm, slightly offended.

“Not that he was aware of when he left Earth, no,” said Maria.

“When he left... Earth?” Kristin asked, unbelieving.

Maria nodded so seriously that it seemed impossible she was inventing her outlandish tale. “When his submarine vanished ten years ago, Captain Bridger and his crew were kidnaped by members of a civilization on another world. The _seaQuest_ was taken there to participate in a battle between rival powers. For them, very little time has passed—and they are little older than when they left. For us, on earth, it has been ten years. I do not understand the mechanics of it, but Captain Bridger assures me that that is the nature of interstellar travel.”

Malcolm nodded. “Relativistic suspension of time. It—”

Kristin slapped his shoulder. “Shut up, Downy. Maria, is Nathan—Captain Bridger—here?”

“No,” said Maria. “He came here after he found Michael. He was starting to make plans, to look for Michael’s father—”

“Robert Bridger is dead,” Kristin interrupted.

Maria shrugged. “Apparently not. He allowed his father to believe he was dead, but, sometime in the last ten years he married, had a child, and abandoned that child at an embassy, where Captain Bridger found him.”

“Where is Captain Bridger now?” asked Malcolm.

“A friend of his came—Lucas... something.”

“Lucas Wolenczak?” Kristin prompted.

“Yes. They left in a hurry. They said they had to find _seaQuest_ —”

Kristin frowned at Malcolm. “Gone looking for his first love.”

“I wouldn't be too sure,” said Malcolm. He had a stupendously idiotic grin on his face, and he was pointing toward the water...

...toward Nathan Bridger, getting out of a UEO boat and walking up the beach toward them, whistling. His hands were jauntily stuffed into the pockets of his loose shorts.

For a moment, Kristin was speechless. She stared at Nathan, who hadn’t noticed them yet. “He's probably just come back to get his things,” she muttered.

Malcolm chuckled. “You mean those special chunks of rubble he's so sentimental about?”

“Well, he... may want to take the boy on _seaQuest_.”

“Yeah, another kid on the boat's all he needs.”

“Look at him!” She pointed at Nathan, who’d barely changed since she’d last seen him. “... It's been ten years. I'm fifty-eight, and he's still—”

“Sixty-two?”

She once again slapped him on the shoulder. “Dammit, Downy, d'ya think I'm just gonna go running into his arms and fall down on the sand with him in a passionate moment out of _Casablanca?_ I hate sand in my hair!”

“It was _From Here to Eternity,_ and it looks like Nathan's got something very like that on his mind. Excuse me. I'll leave you two alone.” He hooked his arm into Maria’s and pulled her toward the ruined house. “Maria, where can a renegade biologist get anything to eat around here?”

Kristin shook her head. Malcolm’s phlegmatic style would never change.

From the direction of the water, a familiar voice called out in surprise. “Kristin?”

She turned. Nathan was running towards her, his face alive with happiness, his arms outstretched. She threw open her own arms and ran.

Sand in the hair was, after all, not so great an obstacle... 


End file.
